Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate

by Waldron Kintzing Post

"That is the reason why I took the liberty of joining so abruptly in your conversation," said the graduate. "I want to tell you young men a story. I have never told it before, and would not tell it to any other audience, but I know that it can be fully appreciated by you, and it belongs to your traditions. So I am going to give it to you, if you do not mind being bored for a while by an old grad."

"I don't think any of us will raise any serious objections," said Stoughton, as he paused.

The graduate smiled and then began: "As I said when I just now interrupted your discussion, there was another side to the glory of the war times in the old college. To the war itself there was, of course, another side, and I was on it. Up to the breaking of the storm we boys had not troubled ourselves much about the out-look. Most of us took politics lightly, and though burning then, still, among us at least, they were, as now I suppose, more the subject of good-natured chaff than of bitter feelings. However deeply the more thoughtful of us may have felt, they never allowed their convictions to interfere with their friendships. Of course, there were a few loud-mouthed zealots who made themselves disagreeable, but they were as much so to men of their own opinions as to those of the opposite.

"Hardly any one really expected war, or, if he did, ever said so. The historic shot fired on Sumter was, therefore, as much of a shock to our little community as to all of the North—even more, for a civil war meant more to us. To us, you know, fraternity is a reality.

"When the news came so that it could not be denied, it was not talked of between us Southerners and the rest. Next came the news that my State had gone out. That night my chum Jim Standish and I sat in our window-seat and smoked a long time without speaking. Finally the question came from him, 'Well, old man, are you going?' I said, 'Yes.' Then he put out his hand and I took it hard. When we had nearly finished our pipes Jim spoke again, 'When this is over, Tom,' he said, 'you will come back and get your degree with us.' I shook my head, I remember, and answered: 'It won't be over until long after our commencement—or else Harvard will be in a country foreign to me.'

"You see I remember that evening and the conversation very vividly. It was all we ever held on the subject. I knew what Jim's opinions were, and he knew mine well enough; but he was too much of a gentleman to make my position any harder for me than it was. I was going to do what I considered my duty,—let that pass now also; it was more than a quarter of a century ago.

"Very soon the letter came from home, but I did not need it to hurry me. Jim and I were together almost every minute until I went away, and all my other friends seemed to go out of their way to show me courtesy and affection.

"The night before I left was Strawberry Night at the Pudding, and I remember I had intended not to go to the rooms. They were then in the top of Stoughton. I was packing in my room when Jim and Harry Rodes and one or two others came in, as a committee, to insist on my going. The committee accomplished its purpose by the usual smooth-tongued diplomacy of the undergraduate. They told me not to make a damn fool of myself, and that if I did not come round like a man, the theatricals should not go on. So I went, and tried to forget on my last night in the Yard that there was any world outside of it. That is the play-bill of those theatricals hanging over there on the wall now. What a time we had that night!

"I went home next day, with Clayton Randolph, Jack Randolph's father, as the rising generation always puts it. There was not much difficulty in getting South at that time. I enlisted soon after I arrived, and, as a result, was rather busy for four years.

"Of course, for a long time I heard nothing from Cambridge. You boys know how almost the whole graduating class went to the front, and many an underclassman did not wait for his Commencement. You can read the degrees won by some of them in Memorial Hall. Every now and then I saw in that precious booty, a Northern newspaper, a name that I had last heard called in a recitation, or had myself many a time shouted across the Yard.